Leela Jacinto is an award-winning international news reporter who has doggedly pursued stories across the globe. Along the way, she has harangued some officials, wined and dined with others, but has always kept her eyes on what’s in it for ordinary folks. A graduate of New York University, Leela has previously worked for ABC News in New York before joining FRANCE 24. In this blog, she provides insights on things you don’t necessarily see in the news bytes.

Al Qaeda’s most dangerous branch, AQAP, has claimed responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo attack, edging arch jihadist foe Daesh (IS) for the moment. So why were there rivals claims in the Paris two hostage crises?

The year that saw Malala Yousafzai win the Nobel Peace Prize is drawing to a close with a horrific attack on schoolchildren in Peshawar. So much for our dreams of a world where kids can go to school without fear.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is also known as the “Kasimpasa man” after the tough Istanbul neighborhood of his childhood. But when it comes to tough man of the region, Vladimir Putin, the Turkish leader can be surprisingly soft.

In 48 hours, Burkina Faso went through three leaders following Blaise Compaore’s ouster, including rival claims to power by two military men for a few hours. In the end, the junior officer won. But can he steer the country on the road to democracy?

Jihadists have sexually enslaved women from Algeria in the 1990s to Nigeria in 2014. Now the group that calls itself the Islamic State has produced a sinister admission and justification of its grotesque treatment of Yazidi women and girls.

On Aug. 11, Gilad Halpern will turn 33, but he won’t be home for his birthday. He will mark that milestone in an Israeli prison. That’s the price he’s willing to pay for being a conscientious objector.

ISIS delivers a multilingual, postcolonial, post-national, proto-caliphate jihadist message to beat all prior propaganda ploys. So, why are we divorcing Iraq from Syria? And why do we always ignore a battlefield to rush into Iraq?

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has blamed Saudi Arabia for funding Islamists. But ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria) is also a threat to the Saudis and for once, Saudi money does not talk.

Two stories emerged from India this week. One was the case of two Indian women in New York from two contrasting backgrounds being treated very differently in the media. But there’s just one issue in all thess dichotomies...

A day before Nawaz Sharif met Barack Obama, news editors were reading from the same script – written by human rights groups. The day after, a carefully planted leak in a US daily supplied the other side.

Westgate has shown that underestimated al Qaeda-linked Somali militant group and now the al Shabaab threat is at our doorsteps – our citizens were the victims, perpetrators, and our immigrant community leaders are being threatened.

In the lead-up to the Iraq War, the French were "cheese-eating surrender monkeys". A decade later, France is now America's staunchest ally on Syria. How did France turn from a white flag-fluttering country to a red-blooded nation of hawks?

Leela Jacinto is an award-winning international news reporter who has doggedly pursued stories across the globe. Along the way, she has harangued some officials, wined and dined with others, but has always kept her eyes on what’s in it for ordinary folks. A graduate of New York University, Leela has previously worked for ABC News in New York before joining FRANCE 24. In this blog, she provides insights on things you don’t necessarily see in the news bytes.